In recent years, the construction of mattresses has undergone significant changes to meet consumer demands for increased comfort and greater choices in their mattresses. As a result, consumers now have a number of different styles, with different features, of mattresses to choose from, including mattresses having varying amounts of stability or rigidity to provide a “soft” or “hard” feel, double sided mattresses, and similar choices. Pillowtop mattresses have become especially popular for providing additional cushioning for the mattresses with the amount of cushioning for a pillowtop mattresses being variable from relatively thin, flat layers to “Euro-box-top” type pillowtop mattresses, which can have several inches of additional padding or cushioning on top of the upper panel of the mattress. However, as a result of the development and offering of the greater variety of styles of mattresses, and because most mattresses generally have, until recently, been manufactured and assembled individually as custom pieces, the manufacture of mattresses, especially pillowtop mattresses, has become more complex and more costly. Further, it is typical for the manufacture of mattresses to be performed in multiple sewing operations conducted at different sewing stations for the assembly and attachment of the various component parts to form each mattress.
FIG. 1 is included to generally illustrate the present state of the art in the manufacture of pillowtop mattresses. It can be seen that as many as twelve separate sewing operations can be required to form and attach the mattress border panel, attachment gusset, flange, and box-top border to the inner panel and frame of the mattress to form a conventional box-top type pillowtop mattress. For example, a mattress 9 is shown in FIG. 1 as including a mattress border 10 that has a gusset portion 11 attached to it at first seam 12, and with a boxtop border 13 being attached to the upper edge of the gusset portion 11 at a second seam 14. The border, gusset, and boxtop initially must be measured and cut to a desired size and their edges sewn in separate operations and thereafter generally must be attached along their side edges along seams 12 and 14 in at least two separate hemming operations, with fire resistant tape 16 being applied over the seams between component edges and then sewn with Kevlar®) thread at a tape edge station in accordance with conventional processes and fire regulations.
The application or wrapping of the fire resistant tape and use of Kevlar® thread for attaching the tape about the exposed edges of the components at the seams therebetween is a requirement to comply with fire regulations in various states. In addition, a cap panel 17 generally will be attached to the lower edge 18 of the mattress border material 10 by another binding tape 19 and Kevlar® thread. Thereafter, the inner panel 21 and flange material 22 of the mattress 9 generally will be attached to the gusset 11 in further, additional sewing operations. It therefore can be seen the prior art methods for forming a mattress typically can require numerous steps in the preparation and attachment of the various components of the mattress, such as the border, gusset and flange material, and the attachment of a pillowtop and/or inner panel of the mattress. In addition, such prior art processes require a substantial amount of relatively expensive materials for their finishing, namely the tape edge material and Kevlar® thread required to sew the tape about the seams of the mattress components.
Accordingly, it can be seen that a need exists for a system and a method for forming various types of mattresses, including box-top pillowtop types of mattresses, which addresses the foregoing and other related and unrelated problems in the art.